5 Pre-Date Rituals To Help Ease Your Nerves

With first dates packing so much anxiety, it helps to have an individualized getting-ready process that helps ease the nerves. Or, as the internet calls it, a pre-date ritual.

A pre-date ritual is a structured routine you follow before a date. Think of it as a way to calm your jitters and ground yourself. This includes pampering yourself with a mani-pedi, listening to a specific playlist, or even hosting a get-ready party with your best friends. 

I took to Reddit to explore some of the most unique and inspiring routines and landed on a lighthearted, applicable thread. Here are five pre-date rituals to try.

1. Choose Your Favorite Comfort Outfit

What you wear to a first date will often impact how confident and comfortable you feel. For example, if you’re in an outfit that’s super revealing or tight, you might find yourself fidgeting to ensure everything is secure and in its place. Or, if you’re prone to bloating, perhaps you’ll feel like the fabric is cutting into you after eating or drinking. As an overstimulated girl, that’s my literal worst nightmare. I can’t focus on anything or anyone else when I’m not physically comfortable.

Choosing an outfit you feel your best in, whether it’s a short dress and heels or jeans and a casual top, will make all the difference. 

On Reddit, one person wrote: “I had a first date uniform. Wore the same outfit every time and I felt like a rock star in it … Every time, I’d have at least one woman stop and compliment m,e and men would watch me walk across a room. I felt like a million bucks every time!”

2. Romanticize the ‘Getting Ready’ Process

Getting ready for a date doesn’t have to consist of quelling your panic while trying not to vomit. In fact, the more you romanticize the process, the less heavy it will feel.

One Redditor said, “I enjoy getting ready almost as much as the date. I take a nice shower, put on some music, slowly apply my makeup in a robe, then wait till the last minute to get dressed and head out. I stopped drinking, but when I did, I would always have just one pre-date drink.”

There are countless ways you can add more comfort to your getting-ready process, from lighting candles and speaking affirmations to watching your favorite rom-com to hype you up.

3. Research Your Date

If you’re meeting someone off a dating app, make sure you’re doing your due diligence by familiarizing yourself with the basics. For example, if they list their job on their profile, you can prepare some career-related questions that show you care about getting to know them.

“I read through her profile and our messages again to refresh my memory about her and what we’ve discussed, and I think up five questions/topics I can bring up during the date to make sure the conversation keeps flowing,” one Reddit user wrote.

4. Dedicate a ‘First Date’ Song

When I was single, I created a first date playlist that included a ton of relevant songs that calmed my jitters. From Blink-182’s “First Date” to Vacations’s “Relax,” these tracks each played their part in comforting me. I highly recommend choosing your own first date song(s) for your getting-ready process or drive over. 

One person on Reddit had a hilarious version of this: “On my way to the (first) date, I play my hype song: I’m on A Boat by The Lonely Island. It’s my go-to to settle my nerves lol.”

5. Cleanse Your Space

Look, sometimes, a date goes so well that you want to continue it at your home. In which case, you should probably set the scene a bit.

“[I] like to put on a scent diffuser so that my room smells nice if I bring them back home, and I make my bed and take out any bathroom/kitchen trash,” one Redditor wrote. “I’ve always been fairly tidy but getting more so every year, so one of my favorite parts of bringing a date home is them noticing my art and plants and how clean everything is.”

Not to mention, it’s nice to get ready in and come home to an aromatic, refreshed space, even if you’re alone at the end of the night.